All Space articles – Page 188
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Claiming a crisis
Tim Furniss/LONDON One more failure and the space insurance business could go into the red Space industry insurers are nervously tallying up their accounts in the wake of 27 loss claims filed for satellite and launch failures last year. The business faces a crisis after meeting more than $1.7 ...
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Shuttle flights faced with further delays
The introduction of the STS101 Hubble emergency repair mission 3A in October and the timing of the launch of the Russian International Space Station (ISS) Service Module in September have led to a shifting of ISS Shuttle flights. Although the STS96 is still scheduled for a May logistics flight ...
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Dnepr prepared for launch
Tim Furniss/LONDON The first commercial launch of the Dnepr, a former SS-18K ballistic missile, will be made from a silo at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan between 21 and 25 April. The launcher is operated by ISC Kosmotras, a consortium of 20 Russian and Ukrainian companies. The 37.3m-high ...
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Mergers
The UK's Dowty Group has bought GE Aircraft Engines subsidiary Tri-Manufacturing for $58 million. The Indiana-based aero-engine components fabricator will be incorporated into TI Group member Dowty's Turbine Engine Components (D-TEC) business. HeavyLift Cargo Airlines, the world's largest outsized-freight operator, has been acquired in a management buyout which values its ...
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On track
NASA has started full-engine, hot-fire testing of the low-cost Fastrac rocket engine at its Marshall spaceflight centre in Huntsville, Alabama, with a 20s full-power test to demonstrate the operation of the complete engine system. Up to 84 engine test firings are planned this year. The 45,000lb-thrust (200kN) Fastrac will be ...
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Globalstar constellation grows
Four more Globalstar worldwide mobile communications satellites are in orbit following their launch aboard the second Starsem Soyuz-Ikar booster from Baikonur on 15 March. Starsem is a consortium involving Samara of Russia, Arianespace and Aerospatiale of France. The flight followed the first Starsem Soyuz launch on 9 February ...
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New satellite series from Hughes
Hughes Space and Communications and DirecTV - a unit of Hughes Electronics - are to launch a new satellite series, the DirecTV 1-R, based on the HS-601 HP direct broadcasting spacecraft bus. The first DirecTV 1-R will be stationed at 101ºW in geostationary orbit, equipped with 16 Ku-band ...
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Satellite lost after gas escape
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA's Wide Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) satellite was lost on 8 March, four days after launch. The spacecraft entered orbit safely aboard an Orbital Sciences (OSC) Pegasus booster after an air launch on 4 March, but soon went into a 60rpm spin. The $73 million WIRE, ...
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Spacehab drums up first Space Station research customer
The first customer has been signed up for the Spacehab commercial space research facility aboard the International Space Station. The Colorado School of Mines' Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space will use the Spacehab-funded furnace, known as Space-Drums, to process exotic glasses and ceramic materials in microgravity. ...
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Elusive image
Tim Furniss/LONDON Images of the earth's entire magnetosphere will be obtained for the first time next yearA new NASA spacecraft will next year capture the first image of the earth's entire magnetosphere - the region surrounding the planet in which the behaviour of charged particles is dominated by the world's ...
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Ariane launches the UK's military Skynet 4E with Arabsat 3A
The UK's Skynet 4E military communications satellite and the Arabsat 3A satellite were launched on board Ariane V116/44L from Kourou, French Guyana, on 26 February. Matra Marconi Space built the Skynet 4E, and the first of the new generation Arabsat 3A communications spacecraft was built by Aerospatiale's satellite division, ...
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NASA may make emergency flight to fix Hubble
An emergency servicing mission may be flown to the Hubble Space Telescope in October because the telescope's gyro system could be on the brink of total failure. The third of its six gyros has now failed and NASA is considering whether to replace them earlier than the third servicing ...
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Martian gliders
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA hopes to deploy a fleet of small gliders to explore parts of Mars that other spacecraft cannot reachSwooping through Mars' own grand canyon, the Valles Marineris, would be the ultimate hang-gliding trip. The first aircraft to make that tantalising journey could be the $40 million Mars ...
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Doubts over future of VentureStar and X-33 SSTOs
A key Congressman, who is responsible for oversight of US space activities has voiced doubts over the viability of the Lockheed Martin X-33 and VentureStar projects to develop and operate a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle. Lockheed's plan to finance VentureStar development with venture capital will ...
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Hughes and China Great Wall rocked by satellite export ban
Tim Furniss/LONDON Hughes Space and Communications and China Great Wall Industry have been hit by a US Government decision to delay issue of an export licence for a satellite launch on a Long March 3B booster. The launch of the Hughes-built Asia Pacific Mobile Telecommunications satellite from China ...
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The cost war
Tim Furniss/LONDON European commercial space launcher group Arianespace is facing increasing challenges to its market dominance as the USA prepares to launch its new fleet of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs). The first flights of the versatile Boeing Delta IV and Lockheed Martin Atlas V-based EELVs are two ...
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Last of the Mir crews are put into orbit
Russia launched what may be the final crew to inhabit the Mir space station, 13 years after the launch of first core module. The Soyuz TM29 was lifted off on a Soyuz U booster from Baikonur on 20 February and docked with the station on 22 February. The crew ...
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Russia admits responsibility for Space Station problems
Russia has "let down" its partners in the International Space Station (ISS) by failing to deliver components on time, according to Yuri Koptev, director of the Russian Space Agency. He admits that, because the Zarya module was designated as the first element and Russia was late delivering it, this was ...
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Argos to test military systems
Tim Furniss/LONDON The US Air Force's latest satellite is a technology demonstrator for future space systems The US Air Force's Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (Argos), to be launched no earlier than 22 February, is a space version of the Swiss army knife. It carries an array ...
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Italy begins development work on advanced satellite sensor
Andrea Nativi/GENOA The Italian Ministry of Defence and the local space agency have signed an agreement to develop jointly a new advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, dubbed SAR 2000, that could be used in a proposed military/civil earth observation satellite. The contract calls for the MoD ...